Kerby Anderson
I have found that most speakers can tell you what question they receive most often. Melissa Cain Travis was on my radio program recently and said her most asked question is about the possibility of extraterrestrials. That makes sense since she often speaks on science topics that include a discussion of the vastness of the universe.
The quick answer is that Scripture is silent on the possibility of other intelligent life forms in the universe. She reminds her audience that the Bible isn’t meant to be a comprehensive cosmic encyclopedia. The discovery of divine creations that aren’t mentioned in Genesis would not undermine the veracity of Scripture.
What if we did discover extraterrestrial creatures? Wouldn’t they need salvation just like we need? There are two possible answers to that question. If their world was fallen, then they would also need salvation. But there is another possibility that C.S. Lewis proposed in his Ransom trilogy. An alien world may not be fallen.
Of course, atheists love to pursue that question. Scientific American posted a provocative article entitled, “Did Jesus Save the Klingons?” The author suggests that the discovery of life beyond Earth “might wreak havoc on certain religions.” She goes on to argue that this would be a “serious theological problem” to imagine Jesus being born in many different alien worlds.
But Melissa doesn’t see a problem with that view. There doesn’t seem to be any theological reason why the Son of God may have been incarnated and atoned for sin in more than one place. That wouldn’t diminish our value as described in Psalm 8.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As I discussed in a commentary in May of last year, the ongoing investigations of UFOs haven’t turned up any extraterrestrials just yet. The question is still hypothetical.

Kerby Anderson
For most of us, perception is reality. But there is mounting evidence that the perceptions of most Americans aren’t even close to reality. Two months ago, I talked on my radio program about a survey done by YouGov, an international research, data, and analytics group.
I didn’t do a commentary on it at the time because there were so many other topics in the news. But now that the graph is showing up on social media sites, it’s worth mentioning. The survey found that Americans tend to overestimate percentages.
Put another way, most Americans lack even a little bit of common sense. For example, the average American guessed that 30 percent of the American population lives in New York City, 30 percent in Texas, and 32 percent in California. Apparently, those surveyed believe that a total of 92 percent of the American population lives in one city and two states. They also found that Americans assumed that 30 percent of Americans are gay or lesbian and another 21 percent are transgender. That would be more than half the population.
When it came to estimating the percentage of minorities in this country, they didn’t do any better. They estimated that 41 percent are black, 39 percent are Hispanic, and 29 percent are Asian. You could also add the 27 percent they guessed were Muslim.
In the past, when I wanted to illustrate the influence of the media on perceptions, I used to say that if all someone knew about America was what was on TV, that person would think that there were lots of homosexuals, few Christians, and lots of violence in the streets.
Unfortunately, the average American’s perception of the world through media is also skewed. This is the view of reality held by many voters. Let me add one more. This skewed view of reality also seems to be held by many of the politicians we elect.